After picking your homegrown jalapeños and banana peppers be sure to wash them thoroughly before canning.
Before slicing jalapeños, be sure to wear gloves.
24 hours later, my hand finally stopped feeling like it was on fire.
There has been a lot of activity around my house in the last few weeks. The evolution of what has gone from installation of a pool has turned into a complete backyard transformation. Beginning in October when the large tree was removed and large hole dug, to the recent events of concrete being poured, new stairs being installed along with a new fence. In the last week, top soil was put around the yard and sod put down all the way to the street where it’s nothing but mud since October.
My step-daughter Carson was down two weeks ago for her Spring Break. We had a great time with her in the house and watching her play with her little brother.
Initially we had recruited the troops to help build the new fence and I prepared to feed an army as our way of saying thanks. That translates into getting a new keg in Betty and lots of meats to throw on the grill.
Laura and Jay, who are getting married next month in the Outer Banks, stand with Carson.
At the last minute, we hired three guys to build the fence in two days. We still had everyone over for dinner.
Last weekend was a birthday weekend at The Neighbors.
The next day we planted our garden. I may or may not have "stolen" a lone jalepeno pepper plant off someone else's cart at the encouragement of the garden center employee.
This past week I hosted Bunco for almost a dozen ladies. It was an odd April day and the temperature was 87F. The good thing is that everyone enjoyed our newly laid sod, expanded deck and area around the pool.
The Neighbors, Chris and Caroline, convinced us to babysit their three kids on Saturday night so they could attend a wedding. They waited til we were at happy hour to ask too.
The feral cat that made me scream the week before when it was hiding under our deck has been "adopted" by the older lady next door to us. It still hangs out in our yard and this time was in the front yard. The kids were playing in traffic in the front yard when they heard the meowing.
It took some convincing but I got the kids into the back yard with the promise of coloring Easter eggs.
On Easter Sunday, we went to The Neighbors house for dinner. The weather was still hot and the kids ran around in their bathing suits through the sprinklers after the Easter egg hunt.
They made their own water slide.
The four kids put themselves in timeout by climbing into the dog crate.
Yesterday I took the day off and Troy and I made the short drive to the beach. It’s the most fun I think he’s had in his short life at the beach. There was also no one there but us for the first hour with the exception of joggers going by and their dogs.
We usually go to the beach on the Chesapeake Bay because the waves are so gentle. Unlike when we go to the beach in the Outer Banks, there are no wild ponies here either.
It’s been a busy April but a fun one.
We have a not so secret garden.
We grow our own vegetables.
We have a compost pile for kitchen scraps.
We have an irrigation system to water the garden.
We like homegrown tomatoes especially when they look like this.
Apparantly, so do the rodents living around my house.
In the last two weeks, the majority of our ripe and just starting to ripen tomatoes have been attacked at night by varmints.
Tim went out on the attack earlier this week and bought two large cages and a few rat traps. All were set off the next day with nothing in them.
If you're keeping score at home.
Rodents 1 - Us 0
Then he bought mouse traps and set them last night at the base of the tomato plants.
This morning I didn't wake up to the alarm clock but "Deb, We Got One! Come check out this fat bastard."
Exhibit A
I said out loud that I hoped he was the only one. Tim responded, where there's one there's many.
Current score:
Rodents 1 - Us 1
I'm guest blogging over at Cathy Has Antsy Pants. She and I have become "internet friends." We may actually meet in real life in October when she leaves the frozen tundra of Minnesota and heads to Virginia. Check out her site.
Read more...
Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend at my parents' lake house in Bumpass the boys were focused on catching some fish "for dinner" off the dock.
On the first night there, my nephew Dylan and stepson Cary used the old faithful of bait, worms hot dogs.
Dylan 
Cary 
On the second night, before the fireworks over the lake, Justin and Dylan erupted with screams from the dock while everyone else was up on the deck drinking relaxing before dinner.
They caught a catfish for dinner.
After telling them what they would have to do to prepare the fish for dinner, it was quickly released back into the water. 
We were left to eat the all-American meal on the Fourth of July, hamburgers and hot dogs plus some weird looking tomatoes from my Mom's garden.
Mother Nature has a funny sense of humor.
Here is a tomato from my mother's garden in Bumpass, Va. 
I have never grown anything like it in my garden. 
What does it look like to you?
About five years ago, Tim and I started hanging out with a couple named Gwen and Chris. Chris joined Tim doing computer work for a contractor of the military. Since he was the new guy at the the time he was nicknamed "Effing" New Guy or FNG Chris.
Every year we cut it back in the fall and it "springs" to life in May. I think of Gwen and FNG Chris and our fun time hanging out together years ago. 
Hard to believe that Caroline is about to have her third baby in a few months.
Here is explanation of Flashback Friday (FF) and other FF posts.
Read more...For the last few years, we have planted a vegetable garden outside our house. Each Spring we get so excited about home-grown vegetables that we purchase too many tomato, pepper and cucumber plants only to have a jungle of which to navigate later in the season. If you need a reminder, click here to see the garden in full harvest mode last summer.
This year, more restraint was issued and we limited ourselves to seven tomato plants, three cucumber and five pepper plants in a few varieties.
This is what it looked like as of this morning.
The two cherry tomato plants are growing splendidly.
The cucumbers are ready to reach out and climb along the fence.
The strawberries are coming in nicely. The reason you don't see any is that Troy, Tim and I picked the dozen or so that were there yesterday, ate them on the spot. 
I quietly enjoyed a silent score update of Deb 1 Squirrels 0 before we ate them. This is the first year I can remember actually eating a strawberry from this pot because the #(*%#@ squirrels or birds always got to them first.
© Blogger template On The Road by 2009
Back to TOP
